LINGUIST List 15.1124

Tue Apr 6 2004

Confs: Applied Ling/Socioling/Athens, Greece

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Literacy Educaton: Local Perspectives in a Globalized World
Date: 14-May-2004 - 15-May-2004
Location: Athens, Greece
Contact: Maria Arapooulou
Contact Email: achristilit.auth.gr
Linguistic Sub-field: Applied Linguistics, Sociolinguistics
Meeting Description:
The Centre for the Greek Language is organizing a two-days
international conference under the title ''Literacy education: local
perspectives in a globalized world'' (14-15 May 2004, Athens,
Goulandri-Horn Foundation), at which only keynote speakers have been
invited.
The conference is designed to offer a forum for discussion of
contemporary literacy content from a 'subaltern' perspective. The
conference will focus on two areas: in the first, mainly of a
theoretical orientation, aspects of literacy content from the
global-local perspective will be discussed. In the second there will
be presentations of applications relevant to this new area. Literacy
education: local perspectives in a globalized world
The sweeping economic, social, political and technological changes
affecting the contemporary world are having a significant impact on
all aspects of our daily lives, necessitating a comprehensive
reorientation of the content of literacy and literacy education. The
new term which appears to reflect the content of the new reality and
its new requirements is ''multiple literacies'', i.e. the need to
recognize many different literacies in place of the one literacy of
the past. A number of significant steps have been taken in exploring
this new direction, most of them during the last decade, and their
impact on the design of recent educational programmes is already
becoming evident.
However, the overwhelming majority of the approaches to the subject
made so far have been in the English-speaking arena or involve a
dominant research model replicated by peripheral countries, so that
debate about the content of literacy in the contemporary world from a
local (non-dominant) perspective is at best marginal, at worst
non-existent.
The international conference being organized by the Centre for the
Greek Language (14-15 May 2004, Athens, Goulandri-Horn Foundation) is
designed to offer a forum for discussion of contemporary literacy
content from a 'subaltern' perspective. The conference will focus on
two areas: in the first, mainly of a theoretical orientation, aspects
of literacy content from this perspective will be discussed. In the
second there will be presentations of applications relevant to this
new area.
Papers will focus on the following topics:
1. In what ways can we talk in terms of multiple literacies and
multiple identities from the perspective of the periphery, and what
aspects should be highlighted in respect of literacy and education in
these contexts? To what degree and in what domains does the different
(social, cultural, linguistic, etc.) position of a student in the new
global system affect a (critical) view of this system?
2. There is wide-ranging debate about the so-called 'world Englishes'
or 'International English', rather than a single global
standard. However, there has been almost no discussion of what is
happening to other languages in the globalization era and of the
impact on the framing of a language education policy to take account
of this parameter.
3. Which new and different areas of investigation and research are
opened up by an approach to the new literacy from this perspective?
4. To what degree the globalization process changes the content of
local (non-dominant) literacy education?
5. Could we speak of a new linguistic imperialism in the period of
global communication and what are the consequences for local
(non-dominant) literacy (education)?
6. What new data (e.g., cognitive, linguistic, social) are emerging
from the process of language socialization in electronic environments
involving different languages and varying degrees of linguistic
familiarity (e.g., English video games played by non English native
speakers, bilingual chat rooms, etc.), and how can they affect the
theory and practice of literacy education?